Faces — Faces at the BBC: Complete BBC Concert & Session Recordings
Qobuz archival release review, Sept. 2024
A strong argument can be made that Faces were the greatest rock ’n’ roll band ever. To be fair, that argument is strongest after a couple of pints or with the stereo at an appropriately loud volume (preferably both). But even in the most academic sense, it’s easy to make a case that the band purely embodied the most essential elements of what made the early ’70s rock ’n’ roll landscape so exciting. Utterly unconcerned with being a supergroup (the remnants of the post-Steve Marriott Small Faces combining forces with Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart from the Jeff Beck Group), and instead focused on delivering a loose, bluesy (and boozy) update on the Small Faces’ soulful psych-rock, Faces charted a back-to-basics course for other bands to follow out of the muck of the late ’60s. The result was a straightforward — but not simplistic — version of modern “classic” rock ’n’ roll delivered by immensely talented musicians who were obviously having a good time. As John Peel teasingly says here, the band was indeed “excessively rowdy,” and often their reputation for debauchery overshadowed their musical strengths. Yet from the first notes of that first Top Gear Peel Session (recorded just a month after the Beatles broke up, and much to the chagrin of Peel’s superiors, who considered the band to be “not serious”), those musical strengths never wavered. Across this exhaustive collection of the band’s BBC sessions — many of which were thought to be lost forever, due to various tape purges at the broadcaster — the Faces show up and deliver the goods every single time. Whether for various Peel-hosted shows (ranging from Top Gear and Sunday Concert shows to an absolutely incredible concert of Christmas carols from late 1970), TV performances, and even a previously unheard 1973 concert recorded for In Concert but never broadcast, every one of these shows is an invigorating listen, with the band’s irrepressible energy radiating through all of the material. While there’s not much in the way of “progress” between the 1970 performances and the 1973 ones (perhaps a bit of raggedy tension arises later on, but not to the detriment of the songs), even that lack of evolution is another point in favor of the case for the band’s superlative greatness; after all, why mess with perfection?
